Holy Christ, if you alternative hypothesis people spent half the effort researching basic physiology as you do constructing useless thought experiments, you would have abandoned all this nonsense a long time ago.

Hehe, Don Quijote is still alive and thrives here on MDA, but instead of windmills he is now battling against mainstream science and empirical truths that has been proven over and over again for hundreds of years! So, the anti-CICO’s team pulling out blatant straw-men and riding against them as they were fighting windmills, obviously to the bitter end on this thread, moving goalposts and using every trick in the book to score some cheap points in their favor! But it’s nothing else than a futile battle against windmills…

You think you're asking rhetorical questions, but the answers can be found at your local community college if you really care. I'm not well versed in biochemistry, but it's not hard to spend a few minutes researching basic concepts to see you're full of shit.

Yeah, I've looked. the answer's INSULIN (basically).

or do you know better? I know you think you do.

If the insulin hypothesis isn't true, then WHAT IS?

ANSWER ME YOU ANONYMOUS INTERNET PERSON.

Man up and give me the biochem. WHAT'S THE SECRET SAUCE, DUDE? HOW DO CALORIES BECOME FAT? HOW HOW HOW HOW?

BIOCHEMISTRY!!!!

WHAT IS THE BIOCHEMISTRY????????

It's clearly NOT insulin, per you. so HOW HOW HOW do calories get stored as triglycerides in the fat cells of the fat tissue?

FWIW, the biochemistry of how fatty acids are stored as TGs is described in detail (meticulously sourced) in a little book called Why We Get Fat and What to Do about It. I suggest you have a peak at that.

Until then, I await MECHANISMS, not snark. MECHANISIMS, not random links to crap you don't understand.

yeah, I gotsa stop writing in all CAPS because it makes it look like I'm frothing at the mouth or something.

What can I say? I'm passionate about this idea and deeply frustrated that people don't seem to get it. Plus, I really am curious to see how CICO people would answer that question. I know you guys think insulin has zero to do with it. But there has to be biochemistry involved.

Adam your better off flushing your copy of Why we get fat down the toilet as I doubt even Gary believes that stuff anymore.
If the amount of insulin a food produced related to how fat you got then beef would make you twice as fat as eggs because they have nearly double the insulin. response.

Why do you think all CI from specific foods/macros equals automatic long-term, unretrievable fat storage? Missing a few beats there. Our body and mind have a constant demand for energy, even at rest. Once our cells are fueled, then muscle and liver glycogen is topped off. Then, excess goes to fat storage. But much like a checking account, the funds can be quickly withdrawn, sometimes immediately and seamlessly, without us noticing--auto-debit while we sleep, breathe, digest, etc. People maintain weight through this harmless process all the time. It's not unusual or unhealthy to make fat deposits and then retrieve them.

I think it's a fallacy to suggest fat storage is always inevitable and long lasting, and always a bad thing. It's good that we store fat. Our adipose tissue has an individual threshold that is beneficial to our survival. It's the excess that tends to be troublesome. Have you ever seen someone who can't store adipose tissue? I read about a rare case some time ago; we are lucky to have such a survival mechanism, civilization just made it easy to abuse. And now we have the luxury of debating how to stop it, or at least slow it down.

Our body and mind have a constant demand for energy, even at rest. Once our cells are fueled, then muscle and liver glycogen is topped off. Then, excess goes to fat storage. But much like a checking account, the funds can be quickly withdrawn, sometimes immediately and seamlessly, without us noticing--auto-debit while we sleep, breathe, digest, etc. People maintain weight through this harmless process all the time. It's not unusual or unhealthy to make fat deposits and then retrieve them.

The sky is blue

Originally Posted by j3nn

I think it's a fallacy to suggest fat storage is always inevitable and long lasting, and always a bad thing. It's good that we store fat. Our adipose tissue has an individual threshold that is beneficial to our survival. It's the excess that tends to be troublesome. Have you ever seen someone who can't store adipose tissue? I read about a rare case some time ago; we are lucky to have such a survival mechanism, civilization just made it easy to abuse. And now we have the luxury of debating how to stop it, or at least slow it down.

Can you please read about what the alternative hypothesis is before you try another rambling post refuting it?

"Proponents of the Alternative Hypothesis argue that intake (i.e., food) plays a role on hormones and enzymes in the body that have a resulting impact on energy output, and even subsequent input. For example, eating one food over another can increase or decrease appetite, increase or decrease REE, increase or decrease AEE, and even impact TEF. While the effect on each of these may be modest in isolation, even small changes over the course of days can result in significant changes over months or years." -P. Attia

So the fact that your fat cells get "hungry" (steal food away from the rest of you) results in additional hunger, and/or decreased non-exercise energy expenditure. It's not the proper working of the fat storage machinery that we're concerned with. It's the tendency for broken metabolisms as a result of accidentally turning the fat-storage machinery up to 11. And it's not proper insulin secretion that causes it, it's insulin secretion turned up to 11 (because the sensitivity of your muscle cells to insulin gets turned way down).

I personally think the Kitavans represent a Black Swan to the claim that carbohydrate causes insulin resistance (not sure whether AdamK is with me here), but that doesn't refute the evidence that a VLC diet may help restore insulin sensitivity. Again, it could be PUFA's or HFCS or any other 4-letter word that's running around breaking metabolisms. The Alternative Hypothesis, itself, doesn't have a dog in that fight. It just says "you grow tall by eating more calories than you expend, but you don't grow tall because you eat more calories than you expend. Growing fat is like growing tall"

"Proponents of the Alternative Hypothesis argue that intake (i.e., food) plays a role on hormones and enzymes in the body that have a resulting impact on energy output, and even subsequent input. For example, eating one food over another can increase or decrease appetite, increase or decrease REE, increase or decrease AEE, and even impact TEF. While the effect on each of these may be modest in isolation, even small changes over the course of days can result in significant changes over months or years." -P. Attia

So the fact that your fat cells get "hungry" (steal food away from the rest of you) results in additional hunger, and/or decreased non-exercise energy expenditure. It's not the proper working of the fat storage machinery that we're concerned with. It's the tendency for broken metabolisms as a result of accidentally turning the fat-storage machinery up to 11. And it's not proper insulin secretion that causes it, it's insulin secretion turned up to 11 (because the sensitivity of your muscle cells to insulin gets turned way down).

I personally think the Kitavans represent a Black Swan to the claim that carbohydrate causes insulin resistance (not sure whether AdamK is with me here), but that doesn't refute the evidence that a VLC diet may help restore insulin sensitivity. Again, it could be PUFA's or HFCS or any other 4-letter word that's running around breaking metabolisms. The Alternative Hypothesis, itself, doesn't have a dog in that fight. It just says "you grow tall by eating more calories than you expend, but you don't grow tall because you eat more calories than you expend. Growing fat is like growing tall"

We are born with genetic blueprints that determine our height and very few things alter that. Science has not found the fat gene that proves we are born to reach a certain weight. All the AH argues is that you can manipulate your food to alter your CO. Reinventing (and heavily marketing) what many already know. People who count calories may or may not graduate to the higher levels of metabolically manipulative details, many who will live in frustration and vicious cycles of yo-yo dieting, but it doesn't change the fact that all weight maintenance, gains, or losses depends on CICO. Your individual formula can vary greatly from others, but AH people are making the wrong argument. They're almost whining about how some people don't fit in the average caloric bell curve for what's metabolically expected, even though most do, so they're trying to rewrite science to make something universally true. Oh well. Life isn't fair like that. Customize food and caloric intake to your needs, not what is predicted for the average person. CICO isn't wrong; certain foods or quantities may or may not be wrong for your formula to achieve certain weight goals. Caloric formulas are just estimates, guidelines based around the average. I will never be able to eat 4000-5000 calories a day even at zero carbs without gaining weight. Low carb is a hack, it works for some. It's not universally foolproof. CICO is no matter how you arrive at that formula. Let's change the discussion to: Not Everyone can reach certain weight goals based off of generic guidelines with all foods; you have to find your numbers and satiety threshold through personal experimentation. But it's still CICO.

"I personally think the Kitavans represent a Black Swan to the claim that carbohydrate causes insulin resistance (not sure whether AdamK is with me here), but that doesn't refute the evidence that a VLC diet may help restore insulin sensitivity. Again, it could be PUFA's or HFCS or any other 4-letter word that's running around breaking metabolisms. The Alternative Hypothesis, itself, doesn't have a dog in that fight. It just says "you grow tall by eating more calories than you expend, but you don't grow tall because you eat more calories than you expend. Growing fat is like growing tall"

I dont understand how anyone can believe that carbohydrates alone cause insulin resistance. I know in this little primal bubble, it seem like low carb is the majority but in the real world, a high carb diet consisting of 50% calories from carbohydrates is the vast majority. Entire countries that contain most of the worlds population eat this way with out any sign of insulin resistance or obesity. This is simple fact and anyone who doesnt believe this has blinders on. Insulin resistance and obesity only became a problem some 40 years ago and completely coincides with processed foods and seed oils.